International · from TN13
Moving abroad from Sevenoaks
A household leaving an old house in this district is usually carrying old furniture, and a long continental run is the hardest test that furniture will ever get. That, rather than the border, is what actually changes on these routes.
Four routes have their own pages. Anywhere else in western Europe is a question we answer straight.
The four routes with their own pages
On these four we hold clearing agents, know the entry formalities and send vehicles often enough to price them honestly. Each page carries the road out, the regions we deliver into, and a document list divided between the rows you obtain and the rows we obtain.
Removals from Sevenoaks to France
Old house to old house. The furniture is the one thing that has to fit both.
- Normandy and the Pas-de-Calais
- Brittany and the Loire
- Charente and the Dordogne
- Paris and the Île-de-France
Removals from Sevenoaks to Switzerland
Nothing on the Swiss side is difficult. All of it is conditional, and the conditions have an order.
- Geneva and Lausanne
- Zurich and Zug
- Basel
- Bern and the Mittelland
Removals from Sevenoaks to Italy
Distance and inaccessibility are each manageable on their own. Italy hands you both, plus the Alps.
- Tuscany
- Umbria and Le Marche
- Milan, the lakes and Lombardy
- Piedmont and Turin
Removals from Sevenoaks to Slovenia
A long drive on good roads, to a country whose administration is unusually quick once you are registered.
- Ljubljana
- Bled, Bohinj and the Julian Alps
- Maribor and the north-east
- The Karst and the Vipava valley
How a European job runs from here
It opens like a move to Otford: a survey, a measured volume, a written inventory and a long look at the fabric. What changes is the standing of that inventory, which stops being our working list and becomes a document a border official may read line by line. Anything of age or value is listed individually rather than lumped into a carton count.
The vehicle then joins the M26 and the M20 and crosses on the Folkestone shuttle — one of the shortest domestic legs of any site in this network. Beyond Calais the routes separate: west and south for France, south-east for Switzerland, east over the Alps for Italy, and a long run through Germany and Austria for Slovenia.
The furniture is the variable, not the border
Customs is the predictable part. The documents are knowable, the agents are appointed, and the process repeats. What is not predictable is how a jointed, veneered, two-hundred-year-old carcass behaves after six hours of motorway and a change of climate.
So on these routes the packing standard rises before anything else does, and we would rather handle the fragile categories ourselves even where a customer would happily do them on a local job.
Collecting beyond the district
A vehicle heading for a Kent crossing passes most of west Kent and south London on the way, so second pickups are straightforward. Where a continental run is already in the diary we will take consignments from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol onto the same vehicle. Say where yours starts and we will tell you plainly whether we are the right firm for it.
Two things we will not put in writing
A transit time before the route, the load and the vehicle arrangement are settled — the honest spread is far too wide for one figure, so the quotation carries an estimated window for your own consignment. And a duty outcome, which turns on residence status and documents, so we set out the conditions rather than imply a result we do not control.
International
Questions about moving abroad
- Which countries do you run to?
- France, Switzerland, Italy and Slovenia on established road routes, each with its own clearing agent and its own page here. The same vehicles reach Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain and Portugal, so ask. Where a destination is not routine for us we say so rather than treat your move as practice.
- Do you ship outside Europe?
- No. We are a road firm, and a container to Cape Town is a different trade with different insurance and different expertise behind it. We will point you at somebody who does it properly rather than take the booking and hand it on.
- How do you pack antique furniture for a long run?
- Differently from a local move, and this is the part of an international job we care most about. Drawers secured, backs supported, veneered corners protected individually, nothing stacked on a jointed carcass. Six hours of motorway does more to a piece of old furniture than a whole day of carrying does.
- Which of these is the awkward one?
- Switzerland, and not because of the drive. It sits outside both the EU and the UK customs union, so a household move is a full third-country import with a clearing agent at the border, a specific relief form, and strict rules on wine. France, Italy and Slovenia all share the EU system.
- The house at the far end is being restored. What then?
- Hold the goods rather than deliver into it, either here or in storage at the destination. Unpacking a household around scaffolding and a half-laid floor is the most avoidable mess in this trade, and on these routes it is also the commonest.
- What about pictures, clocks and anything of real age?
- Listed individually and valued on the inventory, and declared. Certain items can attract additional formalities depending on their nature and age. Tell us at survey — a border is a poor place to discover that a family piece needed paperwork.
Where is it going?
The country, roughly what is in the load, and whether the house at the far end is ready to receive it. Those three decide the vehicle, the route and the file.